Furniture like sofas, sections, chairs, mattresses, and other types of products that use foam, textiles, and leather are notoriously difficult to recycle for consumers. Even though a handful of states have recovery programs for mattresses, many still end up in the landfill. The use of raw materials that include recycled content or are produced using lower impact production practices is quite limited. Additionally, furniture is often difficult to repair or refresh which limits your ability to extend the usable life of products. Very few companies acknowledge these issues.

The company’s Sabai Revive furniture buyback initiative is focused on addressing end-of-life waste issues and extending the useful life of their furniture which can help decrease the total impacts over the lifecycle of their products. Facilitating the reuse of products by directly facilitating recovery and the end of their useful life demonstrates a good understanding of impacts and opportunities for reducing them. Sabai Designs also has a Repair Don’t Replace program designed to help extend the usable lifespan of their products by providing individual components that can be used for repair. Repairing a product instead of purchasing a new one can reduce environmental impacts across the lifecycle

While the company markets their buyback program as being an important strategy for increasing the circularity of their products, it is unclear the extent to which it plays a role accomplishing that objective. For example, if the program helps create sources of recovered or recycled materials that can displace virgin materials being used for their products then it would appear to help increase circularity.